Local Inventor Unveils Cannon That Delivers Christmas Trees at 60 MPH

A LaughParty comic take.

A LaughParty comic take. Everything below is invented, including the inventor, the town and the very confused reindeer.

For generations, getting a Christmas tree home has followed a sacred ritual. You wander a frozen lot for two hours, reject forty perfectly good trees for being "too Charlie Brown" or "too aggressive," then strap your winner to the car roof with twine and hope. Fictional backyard engineer Gordon Pinecrest of the equally fictional Lower Tinselbury decided this process lacked one crucial ingredient: velocity.

"Why carry a tree when you can launch it?" Gordon asked while patting the Yuletide Launcher 3000, a contraption that resembles a pirate cannon that went to engineering school and came back with a candy-cane paint job. The device uses compressed air, a garage-door spring and what Gordon calls "a generous amount of holiday spirit" to fire a seven-foot Fraser fir across the neighborhood.

The first test did not go entirely to plan. The tree sailed gracefully over three houses, a mailbox and a very startled snowman before landing upright in Mrs. Hollis's birdbath. Mrs. Hollis, who had not ordered a tree, decorated it anyway. "It's the first gift I've received by air mail that was literally air mail," she said.

Gordon insists the cannon solves several holiday problems. No more needles in the car. No more arguing over whose turn it is to hold the trunk. And no more debating whether the tree will fit through the front door, because, as Gordon puts it, "Doors are optional if your aim is good enough." His wife has since asked him to stop saying that.

Local officials have raised a few concerns. The fire department wants to know why a tree arrived pre-lit, and the post office wants to know why a spruce was listed as "priority overnight." Meanwhile, the neighborhood cat has not come down from the roof since Tuesday and appears to be filing a formal complaint.

Undeterred, Gordon is already working on accessories. The Ornament Mortar will fire glass baubles in a festive arc. The Tinsel Blaster promises complete tree coverage in 0.4 seconds, plus complete living room coverage, plus several months of finding tinsel in the dog. A star-topper attachment is in development, though early prototypes keep lodging themselves in the gutter like tiny, twinkling protest signs.

Not everyone is sold. Tree farmer Edna Birchwood, also fictional and deeply unimpressed, noted that her customers enjoy picking out their trees. "Half the magic is the hot cocoa and the family photo," she said. "It's hard to take a nice photo when the tree is moving faster than the minivan."

Still, Gordon remains optimistic. He is taking preorders and has one piece of safety advice for buyers: "Always yell 'Tree!' before firing. Not 'Timber.' That's for trees going down. We're a going-up operation."

At press time, Mrs. Hollis had asked for a second tree for her porch. Gordon has promised delivery by Friday, weather and wind speed permitting.

Inspired by Christmas tree cannon: A cannon built to shoot Christmas trees..